When German parliament last week voted to get rid of the three-year path to German citizenship – an option only available to a small number of well-integrated foreign residents with C1 level German – many high profile politicians celebrated.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, of the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU), praised the outcome, saying that "turbo-naturalisation" gave people in Germany "the impression that German passports were being handed out as a kind of special offer".
Yet in the same week, the government was reviewing Labour Ministry plans to launch a new initiative called the "Work and Stay Agency" aimed at speeding up the immigration process for skilled workers.
It is precisely these kinds of mixed messages that experts say put foreigners off from putting roots down in Germany.
'Not committing' to migration
The three-year citizenship option "was meant to really show, or communicate, how Germany wanted to portray itself", Pau Palop-García, a political scientist from the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) told the The Local.
"It was meant to say, 'you can come to Germany, we are serious about it, you can come and you can live here, make your life here, have children or bring your children with you, stay until you retire and we are already offering you a long-term compromise from our side.'
"But it was criticised and then it was revoked. It always feels from the debates that [politicians in Germany] know that we need migration and they want labour migration and so on, but they don't really want to commit to it. And that's when it doesn't work."
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Palop-García said that while German ministers emphasise the need to attract migrants to address labour shortages and support the pension system, their efforts so far could be viewed as superficial.
"You need to make sure that you create a welcoming environment on all the fronts...if you just do it halfway you are only creating, in my opinion, suffering all round," he said.
Germany's demographic challenges
Experts at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) estimate that Germany requires a net immigration of around 400,000 people annually over the next decade to address the growing labour shortage.
Although there's been a marked improvement in recent years, Germany is still far away from this figure. In 2024 around 172,000 visas were issued to skilled workers.
Palop-García said: "The situation is not improving and Germany is not able to attract as much immigration as it should in order to compensate for the demographic change that it's currently facing."
Vacancies are growing across the board, from the health sector to science, IT, manufacturing and education.
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The migration researcher said most industries say "they are very afraid of what's going to happen in the next ten years", but he added it's especially bad in the care sector.
"I think it's becoming very visible for Germans that things are not working as they should and people are starting to realise it's because there is no personnel," he said.
Another factor that puts off internationals is fear-based rhetoric. As The Local has reported, the government has tightened border controls, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz has repeatedly spoken out against dual citizenship, which critics say plays into the hands of the far right.
"On the one side, we have a pragmatic need in Germany that has been identified by politicians, by experts, by researchers. But then on the other hand, we have a very, very unwelcoming climate towards migration in Germany," Palop-García said. "People feel that migration is a problem."
One of the issues is politicians suggesting there is "good and bad migration" – i.e. coming down hard on people who arrive in Germany via irregular routes, such as to claim asylum, while trying to attract more skilled workers at the same time.
But in reality this results in a poor image of Germany in the eyes of all foreigners, Palop-García suggests.
"What happens is that when you promote a very unwelcoming environment, this affects all kinds of migration.
"The moment you promote these mixed messages...that confuses people. And it also confuses migrants themselves who might be interested in coming to Germany."
Can Germany turn it around?
Proposals like the "Work and Stay Agency", which will ease the bureaucracy involved in getting a visa, as well as initiatives like the Chancenkarte, a points-based visa introduced in 2024, are helpful.
But Palop-García said German authorities could make a bigger effort to market these offers on the world stage.
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He said the Chancenkarte could work as a "marketing instrument" that would allow Germany to better compete with countries like Canada, which has built a strong reputation with its points-based migration system.
The key, however, still comes down to providing foreigners with an attractive long-term outlook, says Palop-García.
"The anecdotal data we have indicates that Germany is not doing a very good job in retaining migrants," he said.
"We see that people sometimes come to Germany with expectations: they want to move for the long term in Germany, they want to work in Germany, they bring all their capital and they try to make it in Germany. But very soon they realise that it's very difficult in German companies, and that it's very difficult for the children to integrate in schools and that they don't feel welcome.
"This is where people decide sometimes to just go to another country or move back to their countries of origin."
Paul Krantz, Editor, The Local Germany
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